Entropic buys mixed signal specialist

Entropic has acquired Mobius Semiconductor, which specializes in low power, high performance analog mixed-signal circuitry. Entropic said it will spend approximately $13 million in cash plus employee equity-based incentives to buy Mobius.

The acquisition of Mobius enables Entropic to add advanced analog mixed-signal expertise and strengthen its competitive product offerings in both the cable and satellite markets, Entropic said, offering designs that are low power, high-speed, and which capture the full bandwidth of the signal payload – to drive more entertainment streams and IP services to more connected devices in the home.

This technology can also be leveraged by global satellite service providers to migrate to digital single-wire communications, the company said.

"By acquiring Mobius, we are reinforcing our commitment to global service providers seeking to advance their next-generation architectures with low power analog mixed-signal silicon solutions," said Patrick Henry, president and CEO, Entropic. "We believe the technology will enhance our product portfolio, enabling us to provide customers more integrated solutions for cable and satellite client and gateway devices, as well as for satellite outdoor unit solutions."

Separately, Access Co. said it is integrating its DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) technology component and HTML5 browser software with the latest set-top box (STB) chipset solution from Entropic.

This collaboration will enable cable operators to meet the FCC mandate for cable STBs to include an industry-standard IP interface port, and provide DLNA Commercial Video Profile (CVP) functionality.

The integration will be of Access’ NetFront Living Connect DLNA software combined with its NetFront Browser NX 3.0 HTML5 software running on Entropic's EN7588 high-performance STB SoC. The combination will enable operators and device manufactures to quickly implement STB-centric services that can support DLNA guidelines on consumer electronic (CE) devices.

The two said that with hardware acceleration, the solution achieved more than six-fold performance improvement by leveraging Entropic's dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with Neon extension.

Access CTO Kunihiro Ishiguro said, "The FCC validation of DLNA as a suitable industry standard for cable operators looking to support the FCC mandate for IP connectivity is great news as it plays a significant part in standardizing a common feature set for operators to deliver to their consumers. As a vendor of DLNA Technology Components and HTML5 Browser solutions, we look forward to discussing how our technologies can enable operators to meet the FCC requirement for an IP connectivity standard."

Entropic has acquired Mobius Semiconductor, which specializes in low power, high performance analog mixed-signal circuitry. Entropic said it will spend approximately $13 million in cash plus employee equity-based incentives to buy Mobius. Separately, Access Co. said it is integrating its DLNA and HTML5 technologies with the latest set-top box chipset solution from Entropic.